London - 700k budget a nice two-bed flat or small house further out with DS

[rollypolly80]

Hi,

This is a follow up from another thread. I've been debating whether to go for a nice two-bed flat in a fab area with good schools/shortish commute or go for a two-bed house somewhere further out and probably less nice.

I am a single parent with one DS so great schools and commuting are important. I'll never be able to afford private and would love for DS to go somewhere nice. Currently renting in the centre which is super convenient but expensive and should really buy. I come from abroad and have always lived in flats, but a few people were suggesting that I should opt for a house but further out.

What would you do? Is it always better to opt for a house or is a nice big flat good enough? Is my kid going to be looked down for living in a flat - sorry am clearly over-worrying about this, I already have enough guilt that his dad is not around without him being made fun of that we don't have a massive house with a drive.

That s down the line but there are options . Camden school for girls takes boys in sixth form
State Primaries in london are good.
You have decent budget for 2 bed flat in easy commute to work. Lots green spaces in nw parkruns etc or non sporty extra curricular activities eg Camden music trust.

@rollypolly80 there is a class system in the uk. a lot of families with inherited wealth. The parents are not rich but the grandparents are paying the school fees, hence private school becomes more of an option and the kids don't go to the local state comp even though parents are earning far less than you. I know a teacher whose is a single mum and her child goes to private school, her parents pay 50% of the fees.

As for faith schools, its not that we are trying to do god. Its that all religions need to ensure that at least some of the children of their followers are well educated and get nice professional jobs as these are the people who are hopefully going to continue to support and donate to the religious institution in later life. Religious people tend to have more children so they can't necessarily afford or want to pay for school fees. Thats why every religion has an anchor school with excellent academic standards. Catholicism has London Oratory (which educated the children of Nick Clegg and Blair) and St Michael's Catholic Grammer. The Jewish schools, JFS, JCOSS and Yavneh have better results than non faith schools as many of the people who send their children to these schools could have afforded private, or their children could have gone to grammar school, but they chose not to on religious grounds. Hence this lifts the results for the schools . My DH told me that at JFS, his teachers kept telling the kids how they had to be the next generation of jewish leaders. Its was a very diverse bunch of children, many of the kids were very working class but they were in the same school as the children of extremely wealthy professionals simply because they shared the same religion and thus had the same expectations.

Unfortunately, all schools were good results are selective in some way, whether by wealth, academics, religion or postcode.

Op SE London isn't a long commute from Euston. Do the journey regularly and it really is 30-40 minutes

Yes the class system is going strong when it comes to London school and Universities sadly. You often don't even realise it until you come to live and work here.

It is trickier for boys but if you don't want to go the Grammar School route (or even if you do) you might want to consider cultivating a love of sport or music in your son as there are scholarships for all sorts of schools in London based on those. They are supposed to measure innate potential rather than skill but weirdly it seems those who've learned an instrument from being young have more innate talent than those who don't...

I know both SE London, North London and Hackney well. With your budget and your commute, I would choose somewhere like Stoke newington. Great family area and you can get to Bloomsbury (was it there? Sorry I read back and suddenly can’t remember!) in about 35 mins. Great schools, too.

Crouch End / Muswell Hill are so badly connected that you might as well be in the SE part you prefer.

And there’s absolutely no stigma attached to living in a flat in London!

Loads of kids live in this development and it’s right next to the park and in catchment for a lovely primary school.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70616799.html

Apologies for going all ranty earlier. Every country has its own quirks and housing/schools/class is the British one. It's just sometimes both hard work but also just time-consuming trying to figure it out and then basically game it......really who's got the time for it ....

But thank you very much for all your insights! It's hard trying to figure out a new place and brilliant to get some much help

I dont think you were ranty dont worry.

I dont think you need to game the system either to that extent - it is just acceptance that you can't have it all and need to choose and then commit to what is most important to you.

For some it will be a chichi neighbourhood, for some closeness to work, for some really good school choice, access to green areas etc etc. There isnt anywhere in London that really suits all of these so you just have to prioritise.

Not ranty at all, don't worry. Schools are a perennial discussion/griping point for Londoners so if anything you are fitting right in with the English way of life by joining in

My two-pennies worth - essentially where you have a densely populated city like London and when, inevitably, some schools are more popular than others, you have to have some way of deciding who goes where - whether or not you agree that faith/grammar schools should be allowed at all (or allowed to use faith/exam performance as an entry criteria if they are), the fact that all schools use proximity/distance as a criteria doesn't work well here, although it may be fine in smaller towns and rural areas. In London, tiny catchment zones mean you create a sort of two tier system by default, as richer parents are able to pay more to move house/live in more expensive catchments - and really it's not necessary/sensible to use distance in this way as schools tend not to be very far from one another in relative terms. If you truly believe in comprehensive schools I think a lottery system would be fairer so anyone within the borough/within a certain (fairly wide) distance of the school would have an equal chance of attending, but obviously this would mean some kids missed out on going to the 'better'/more middle class schools and would have to go to the 'rougher'/poorer schools further away which obviously isn't desirable to the middle classes (who have a lot of voting power etc!). Implementing this would affect house prices as well as affecting children's education so you can imagine the uproar, but eventually it would mean less gaming of the system, evening out of house prices so you didn't get absurd situations where identical houses half a mile apart cost vastly different amounts, schools would be more truly comprehensive as there would be more of a spread of different backgrounds and abilities in each school, and parents who want to buy their way into a better education would be forced to do so honestly by paying for private school. It would make measuring performance easier too, as at the moment a lot of the schools which get very good exam results are massively helped by the fact their intake is predominantly the children of middle class pushy parents whose children are already far likelier to do well regardless of how well the school educates (there are progress/attainment/balanced measures than exam results as well but can be harder to interpret). For now however, the system is as it is...

For what it's worth, I think you have plenty of choices here and none of them are bad - you can buy the biggest/best house in your favourite area and worry about schools when the time comes (secondary is still a good few years away for your DS and schools and catchment areas can change a lot in the course of a few years), you can compromise and buy somewhere smaller in the catchment zone of an outstanding comp, you can tutor for grammar schools (this doesn't have to be the 5 hours a night enforced slavery, 'your-life-depends-on-this' nightmare you see some parents putting their kids through, for a bright kid a little less intensive preparation can be plenty and you don't need to pressurise them - they don't need to get the highest mark in the country to get in after all, and they don't need to see how much you want them to go to a particular school) or you can buy somewhere modest with your capital and save everything you would have spent on the mortgage towards private fees (probably this would mean both a flat rather than a house and zones 3-4 rather than 2-3 but still a nice standard of living overall).

I'm sure your DS will do very well wherever he goes, the biggest determinant of a child's academic success is thought to be how involved and educated their parent(s) is, he will take his expectations etc from you. There is no comprehensive school in London, even the very worst/roughest ones which will rule him out from going to a RG university and getting a professional job. You see stories in the local papers every single year of students from very average/'rough' comps who have worked hard, got top grades and go to Oxbridge - yes these students may be the exception rather than the 'norm' as at a top public school or grammar but it's clearly possible and those kids will have benefited from a whole different system of education going through a comp rather than a selective school, it develops different qualities IMO. I guess it depends a bit on your DS' personality though and there shouldn't be shame attached to trying to get the best education possible for him, is he the type that likes being the big fish in the small pond or is he happy to be 'middling' and needs pushing to realise his potential? What type of atmosphere would suit him best socially? What are his extra curricular interests (a lot of what private schools offer over and above state education are extra curricular e.g. better music/drama/sports facilities, but arguably you can recreate a lot of this through paying for tutors/clubs etc outside school)? Not that you have to have all the answers now but things to think about...

Brits are hung up on living in houses - bringing up a family in a flat is far more normal elsewhere in the world. I would go for the shorter commute, and if you can get a garden flat that would be lovely. If you're overall quality of life will be better on a flat, just go for that :)

*your, not you're

@maxelly - honestly, he's just a normal lively and outgoing kid. He's smart enough, but he's not a genius or someone that obsessively does their work on their own at the exclusion of all else. I don't think that he'd be the one outstanding kid that makes it to Oxbridge from a rough area. I also wouldnt particularly want him to go to an all-boys school - I've obviously never done it myself, but why split boys and girls into different schools. I always assumed he would just go to a local school, but all of my colleagues have decided to go 'special'

I've just had a look at a couple of places online in N1 - does anyone know if there are any ok schools around there?

@se22mother - which part of SE London would you say is the easiest to get to Euston/Kings X?

Stoke Newington School and Sixth form is good as is the Petchey Academy in Stoke Newington.
Then theres Skinners academy, Mossbourne Academy (outstanding in all areas) as is Gladesmore Academy. The city academy Hackney is outstanding, but a bit further out.

With a house you won't have to move if you can add space to it if/when needed. You'll be able to have pets if you like. I lived in flats when I was renting, then bought my first flat (no garden). As soon as I could I bought a house and now I couldn't imagine living in a flat again.

The freedom that comes with owning a house instead of a flat is something that you might not necessarily enjoy now but probably in the future.

And the lack of issues due to the people above/below you is sooooo nice!

In any case, best of luck :-)

And the lack of issues due to the people above/below you is sooooo nice!
That's the biggest issue with flats imo - I used to live in several flats (expensive and otherwise) and in most of them there was a leak from above, and once from my bathroom - not disastrous but you aer hevily involved with other people and you may no tlike them - you wouldn't meet them when viewing! I had a problem with creaking floors above sevetal times - I'd only go for the top floor if I moved to a flat again (in a conversion) - but then you get no garden in most such cases. And will be overlooking someone else in their garden.

Having said that, the neighbour noise AND smoking (esp weed) is very much there in terraced houses and even semis - you can be lucky and find out what the neighbours are like, but if there is an issue no one will be homest. But at least it's not an immediate walking above your head or maintenance disputes.
For London, flats do work but I'd be very careful about the position of the flat, the neighbours, and to find out re service charges.

@CatAndHisKit the noise issue was much worse in my MIL's Victorian terrace. It was a terrace, my bedroom was next to their reception and I heard all their arguments as clearly as day. I knew all their private business and they were speaking normally.i think in London though unless you can afford detached, this is an issue. Also one problem with London houses, a lot of them are flat shares and HMOs now especially in the trendy and popular areas that OP is interested in. Flats are likely to have only 2-3 sharers or a small family (flat don't tend to have more than 3 usable rooms). With a house, they can stuff more people in as houses in London are extended to the hilt (reception, loft can all be used as bedrooms). When I was living in Hendon, there was this house which literally had 10 or maybe more people living in it, I didn't live next to them but you can imagine how noisy it was.

But I also live on the top floor (second floor) now. I think purpose built flats are better in this regard but you are likely to have a communal rather than private garden.

I've lived in central London Z1 all my life and I'd always choose to live more centrally than buy a bigger place further out. It's not what everyone would choose but the convenience and lack of stress over travel makes it worthwhile for us. It's always a relief to be able to stroll into work when there are huge delays and my colleagues are struggling to get in on the trains. We can all walk to work/school, and have a load of amenities on our doorstep, with a huge range of travel options. I wouldn't like to live somewhere like Muswell Hill or Stoke Newington, because the transport options are comparatively poor, and partly because of that and partly because of the local community, people tend to stay in the area to socialise.

We live in a block of flats which is about 20 years old and the noise insulation is excellent - I'm never bothered by my neighbours at all, and the layout means that we don't hear noises from adjacent flats.

The service charges and leasehold is a downside, but for us it's outweighed by the convenience of city centre living. We don't have any outside space, not even a balcony or shared garden. I'd probably have chosen a flat with a bit of outside space if I had to choose again. But we prefer to get out and about into town and explore the parks and gardens anyway (we've gone out every day during lockdown and gone to a new outside space every time, because there's such a huge range within walking distance).

Parts of Islington/Hoxton N1 would be within budget and within a short commute/walking distance to Euston. There is Central Foundation School near Old Street which is outstanding (boys only). City of London Academy in N1 is also outstanding now (it doesn't have a great reputation locally, but it's mixed). You do have the budget for some WC1 or NW1 properties which would be a short walk to work, but the school options for boys around there aren't great.

Some of Hackney secondary schools have great results, but with tight catchments (and transport in those areas isn't very good) and some of them are very strict, which may or may not suit your child.

Desiring yes, terraces can be as bad as a conversion flat above with hard flooring/or badly laid and creaky - I lived in one where I could hear some of their convo but especially the walking on creaky floors - never again!
Old terraces really vary though - some have adjoining halls and the other side an arch into garden (this also from the 50s, not just Victorian) - but no, I wouldn't choose a bog-standard terrace with thin walls and room-next-to-room next door layout. End of terrace can be good. I think semis are great with adjoining halls/stairs - I'm in one now (not in London). But top floor flats with a nice-ish communal garden is def the best in terms of flats, I'd go for the same.